No plan for legislation on population control, govt tells RS

The government is not contemplating any legislative measures for population control, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar told the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

Responding to a question on whether the government has taken note of the statement by a Union Minister that a Bill will be brought for the purpose of population control, Pawar said the government seeks to stabilise population by 2045, in line with the National Population Policy 2000 and National Health Policy 2017.

Efforts of the government have been successful in reining in the growth of population, she said in a written reply.

Pawar said the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) declined to 2.0 in 2019-21, according to the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS 5), -- which is below replacement level -- while fertility rates in 31 out of 36 states and UTs were seen to have come down to the replacement level fertility in the same survey.

Pawar further informed the house that modern contraceptive usage has increased to 56.5 per cent and the unmet need for family planning is only 9.4 per cent, according to NFHS 5.

She said that according to the Sample Registration System of the Census, the Crude Birth Rate (CBR) had declined to 19.7 per 1,000 people in 2019.

"Hence, the government is not contemplating any legislative measures," Pawar said in her reply.

Many right wing groups and some BJP leaders, including Union Minister Giriraj Singh, have been demanding a stringent law to check the population growth in India.

At latest report by the United Nations stated that India is projected to surpass China as the world's most populous country next year.

According to the UN, India's total fertility rate had come down from 5.9 children per woman in 1950 to 2.2 children per woman in 2020, just shy of 2.1 replacement level fertility.

Replacement level fertility is the TFR at which population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next, without migration. Anything below this level practically results in an increase in elderly population, with less and less younger people to support them.

The World Population Prospects 2022 by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, said that the global population is projected to reach eight billion on November 15, 2022.

The report said that "India is projected to surpass China as the world's most populous country during 2023.”

The world's two most populous regions in 2022 were Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, with 2.3 billion people, representing 29 per cent of the global population, and Central and Southern Asia, with 2.1 billion, representing 26 per cent of the total world population.

China and India accounted for the largest populations in these regions, with more than 1.4 billion each in 2022.